Kaleidescape Ceasing Operations

Kaleidescape, manufacturer of high-end premium movie players and servers, reportedly is ceasing operations and looking for a buyer. Founder and CEO Cheena Srinivasan disclosed the situation in an interview with CEPro.com.

“I never planned for this day. This channel has become family for us,” said Srinivasan, who attributed the decision to finances.

“Basically we had sky-rocketing costs. We had the solution, but we had to spend money. We exhausted our financial resources.”

The executive said that while the search goes on to find a buyer(s) of its technology, a team has been assembled to deal with customers and wind down operations at the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based digital retailer and consumer electronics manufacturer.

Founded 16 years ago, Kaleidescape cut its teeth selling a $14,000 hard drive/server that allowed users to digitally collect store-bought DVDs. Studios responded in 2005 by suing the company along similar legal arguments litigated years later (2009) against Real Networks’ ill-fated RealDVD copying software.